Vale Sees Unusually Large Options Volume (NYSE:VALE)

Vale S.A. (NYSE:VALE) saw some unusual options trading activity on Wednesday. Investors purchased 99,798 call options on the company. This is an increase of approximately 137% compared to the typical volume of 42,096 call options.

Hedge Funds Weigh In On Vale

Large investors have recently modified their holdings of the company. Point72 Asia Singapore Pte. Ltd. purchased a new stake in Vale in the 3rd quarter valued at $28,000. Brooklyn Investment Group raised its position in Vale by 215.9% in the 4th quarter. Brooklyn Investment Group now owns 2,780 shares of the basic materials company’s stock valued at $25,000 after buying an additional 1,900 shares during the last quarter. Point72 Hong Kong Ltd purchased a new stake in Vale in the 3rd quarter valued at $36,000. Wilmington Savings Fund Society FSB purchased a new stake in Vale in the 3rd quarter valued at $79,000. Finally, Vienna Asset Management LLC purchased a new stake in Vale in the 3rd quarter valued at $117,000. 21.85% of the stock is currently owned by institutional investors.

Analyst Upgrades and Downgrades

A number of equities research analysts have recently issued reports on VALE shares. Scotiabank reduced their target price on shares of Vale from $14.00 to $13.00 and set a “sector perform” rating for the company in a research report on Monday, January 6th. Barclays cut their price objective on shares of Vale from $16.00 to $15.25 and set an “overweight” rating for the company in a research report on Wednesday, December 4th. UBS Group cut shares of Vale from a “buy” rating to a “neutral” rating and cut their price objective for the stock from $14.00 to $11.50 in a research report on Monday, November 11th. Morgan Stanley cut shares of Vale from an “overweight” rating to an “equal weight” rating and cut their price objective for the stock from $14.50 to $11.30 in a research report on Thursday, December 12th. Finally, Wolfe Research raised shares of Vale from an “underperform” rating to a “peer perform” rating in a research report on Wednesday, January 8th. Seven analysts have rated the stock with a hold rating and five have assigned a buy rating to the stock. Based on data from MarketBeat, the stock presently has an average rating of “Hold” and a consensus price target of $13.89.

Vale Stock Performance

NYSE:VALE opened at $8.86 on Thursday. The company has a market capitalization of $40.08 billion, a PE ratio of 4.10, a P/E/G ratio of 0.28 and a beta of 0.92. Vale has a fifty-two week low of $8.38 and a fifty-two week high of $14.47. The company has a 50 day simple moving average of $9.26 and a two-hundred day simple moving average of $10.22. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.39, a quick ratio of 0.58 and a current ratio of 0.91.

Vale (NYSE:VALE) last posted its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, October 24th. The basic materials company reported $0.56 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, topping analysts’ consensus estimates of $0.41 by $0.15. The firm had revenue of $9.55 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $9.61 billion. Vale had a return on equity of 21.07% and a net margin of 22.59%. During the same period in the prior year, the business earned $0.66 EPS. Research analysts anticipate that Vale will post 1.8 earnings per share for the current year.

About Vale

Vale SA, together with its subsidiaries, produces and sells iron ore and iron ore pellets for use as raw materials in steelmaking in Brazil and internationally. The company operates through Iron Solutions and Energy Transition Materials segments. The Iron Solutions segment produces and extracts iron ore and pellets, manganese, and other ferrous products; and provides related logistic services.